If there's another player out there who gives more insight into the game, his team and his psyche than Curt Schilling, I'd like to know who that is. Curt sat down for an extra in-depth interview with the Maynard Beacon-Villager, and (as per usual) serves up a whole host of excellent material for Sox fans.

I distilled the interview down to the parts that relate more specifically to the Red Sox, but you can see the entire (very, very lengthy) interview here. I also bolded some of my most favorite quotes from Curt.

LVO: I read on your blog that you yourself really, enjoy playing these games. Are you doing that while traveling?

CS: I'm playing MMO's - the massively multiplayer online games...One of the things that you have as a professional athlete is an immense amount of free time. Most of that is when you're traveling. I'm married with children so the social life that I might have had when I was twenty or twenty-one no longer exists. And we're in a culture and in a day and age when going out into the public can result in bad things even if you don't have bad intentions. So you know what? You remove any doubts any chance of something like that happening by just not doing it. And, some people may say, "Well geeze that's a rough way to live." Well it's not. During the season I have commitments to keep and usually as we travel I'll have business meetings around the cities we're traveling in and I'll keep in touch with everybody on the internet but it's what I do. These games allow me to literally hang out with my kids as well, because they're home and they get online and we'll play together and so it's just another little bit of a connection for us.

LVO: As far as pitching.... You're in a very high stress job out there. How do you keep your cool before, during and after the game?

CS: Before the game I'm not cool. I'm probably as nervous as anybody by far.

LVO: So what do you do?

CS: I just focus on getting prepared and I spend those days preparing for the game and once the game starts that's the easy part. The game for me, that's what I do. It's like when you're writing. When you're sitting at your desk writing that's your element. I'm in my element on the mound. There's stress, but it's not stress, there's a tension an adrenaline that comes with competing. There's the ups if you win the downs if you lose but you know I'm probably by far more nervous than anybody on the day I pitch. Because you set a standard and it's not something that ....you can ever walk away from...it's there every time...people expect things from you. And you set a standard for yourself and a bar for yourself that has to be met every time and your playing against the best players in the world. And so it's an incredible challenge to maintain that consistency.

LVO: And afterwards?

CS: I get on-line and play when I'm on the road. I don't sleep much on the nights I pitch. This year I did a lot of blogging after I pitched breaking down the games. I have four kids so the whole bring you back down to earth thing is in your face and very easy to get when you're at home.

LVO: You touched upon this earlier but several people have asked me and I wondered this too. What is the medal that you where around your neck? They noticed that before you go to the mound usually you turn away for a bit and grab it ...."

CS: Yeah, we'll it's a gift that I was given. And the cross symbolizes...the mesh wire that is holding the cross together represents the crown of thorns. The steel represents the spikes that were driven through His hands and the cord that ties it is the cord that was used to bind His hands and feet. And the pregame thing is prayer. I say a prayer before every start. I find a lot of people...ask the question, "What do you think God is going to like one person over another on the baseball field? You can understand it to a sense,but I'm never praying to win. There might be some times when I'm struggling when I might ask for a little help but for the most part it's praying about being able to do the thing that He gave me the ability to do. Praying for the safety of all the players involved in the game and just thanking Him for the chance to experience what I'm about to experience. You know step-up on that mound, and baseball is very different. When you have the ball on the mound as a pitcher everybody's watching you and it's an incredible rush. I've said it before I'm blessed so far beyond anything I could ever dream of, a beautiful healthy wife, four incredibly beautiful healthy kids and a job that is not really a job. I get to do the thing that I love most in life for a living. All the things that come with that are gravy but every five days I get to step on the mound at Fenway Park and pitch for a nation of 15, 20 million people.

LVO: Do you feel that he continues to influence your life?

CS: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I leave a ticket for my dad every game that I ever pitch.
LVO: You do?

CS: Since 1988, I've left a ticket every game I've ever pitched. I was with my father when he had an aortic aneurysm and I was actually getting ready to take him to the airport to go back home to Colorado. I was separated from my family at the time. They were in Colorado waiting for him to come back. He died. He was on life support and I had to make the decision to...to...but that experience while it is by far in a way the most horrible thing that I've ever seen in my life, also made me realize that I had learned a lot from him because from the time he had the heart attack until he went to the hospital, I gave him CPR, I called the ambulance I was with him the entire way and I was totally calm. I was, as he would hope I was. But, I know that someday he and I will talk again and the ticket was and is a way to make sure he knows that everything that's happening to me is a direct result of who he was. And so it's a pretty cool thing for me to be able to write his name on the pass list every five days. Some of the biggest games of my life....I've learned more from my dad from the day he died till now then I did when he was alive.

LVO: That's interesting.

CS: I can remember sitting down on the bench before game seven of the World Series in 2001 and I'm pitching against the Yankees in Arizona and Roger Clemens, and all the side stories that went along with this game. And, I always do the things I do on the day I pitch on the same cycle, the same routine, and I can remember... I'll have conversations with him in a sense that, you know, that dialogue you have with someone when they're not around where you know what their response is going to be. And it was like I was pretty worked up and I can remember him saying, in my head saying, "Seriously what's the big deal? You're gonna go out in about a half hour and your gonna take the ball and do what you've done your whole life. And your gonna pitch and then the game will be over and you'll win or lose but you've done everything you can possibly do to be ready for this game. So, at some point you have to enjoy these things. You may never get here again."

LVO: Just what you needed to hear.

CS: Yeah. I'm going to go out and I'm going to pitch and I'm going to have fun. He's done that a lot for me over the last 19 years.

LVO: Your Red Sox teammates are actually like true family members in that like with actual families, you don't have a choice as to who your siblings are going to be and just like in actual families you often get very different personalities mixed in there under the same roof. Can you tell me some of the roles that your teammates play in that mix? Is there someone playing the older wiser brother, the comic relief?

CS: One of the things about that is that this is a very different household playing in Boston. There are external pressures and external things that don't happen anywhere else so you have to be a little bit different from an equipment standpoint mentally to play here. We have, every team has characters that play the role, the leader, the funny guy. On this team there are a group of guys. Jason is the leader, not the vocal leader. He's the guy who goes out and plays the game the way it's suppose to be played and he really leads by example. There are a couple of us who are more vocal and comfortable being vocal about it, who I think, say the things that need to be said when no one else will say them. You also have to have a manager who allows that to happen and Terry Francona is very good about allowing the clubhouse to police itself. Doug Mirabelli is the funny guy. Eric Hinske's the funny guy. We got a ton of great guys from a comic relief standpoint but everybody fills a nitch. With the amount of cultures that are put together every year and the amount of backgrounds that we have, it's essential that you have the ability to get in somebody's face and not have them take it personal when it's not

LVO: Why do you feel that the combination works so well in that it had you bring home the World Championship again this season?

CS: Number one is talent... It's an incredibly talented group of guys, that's the first thing you have to have. Number two, you have to be semi injury-free. Everyone has to stay healthy. You have to have depth. You have to have a thorough blend of talent all the way up and down your roster cause everybody's going to contribute. But I think it starts at the top. You have to have somebody playing here who doesn't panic, who doesn't act and react to the media because when the manager shows that vulnerability is seeps into the clubhouse. And, Terry Francona is the best I've ever seen at it. He takes it with a grain of salt here like nobody that I've ever been around. This media can be burdensome at times and invasive and he doesn't allow that to fester in the clubhouse. You know if he feels like something is potentially going to get out of hand he's the guy that has the meeting to stop it before it happens. So it does it starts at the top. The ownership Mr.Luchino, Mr. Henry, Mr. Werner make it very clear that they're committed to not just us but our families, which is huge.

LVO: Playing for Red Sox Nation, what does it mean to you?

CS: It's one of those things. I can't fathom my career ending without this experience. I mean this just makes me realize that the years I spent in baseball before this were incredible and fun but there is no other place .... This is Notre Dame football, Packer football, Yankee baseball, Lakers basketball you know, Montreal hockey all rolled in to one. I said when I came here in New England it's Catholicism and Red Sox baseball and not necessarily in that order. The thing that really kinda hit me, knocked me off my feet when I first signed here was that fact that it was Thanksgiving in 2003 and there were people in New England who were saying their Thanksgiving prayer. I was part of that prayer. I mean that's not the Arizona Diamondbacks or the San Diego Padres, that's a whole different level. You come here and experience it and you realize these people are personally invested in you and your life. What you do off the field and how you act matters to them. And so there's a level of accountably [sic] that comes with playing in this organization that a lot of other teams don't have and I like it! I can see where it might be a challenge when I was a younger player, but at this stage in my career it's something that I absolutely cherish and it made the decision to come back here to me, a no brainer.

LVO: What did if feel like to win the World Series again? Was there a memorable moment in the series that stands out in your mind?

CS: There's no singular memories as much this time around as there were just visions of you know Josh setting the tone in the post season with that first start in Anaheim... This was the first World Championship team of the three that I've been on where I didn't think it was gonna happen, up until it happened. Up until we made the last out in game seven against Cleveland, I wasn't sure. You know it didn't feel the same, so in a way it made it just as special as the last one because when we went in to play Colorado, you know with the eight days off and we played that first game and it just seemed very clear that we were incredibly sharp and focused and they were knocking some of the rust off. In a seven game series you don't have any time to catch up so you know I felt like whoever was going to come out of the National League was going to be at a disadvantage this year. From a special stand point they're all special . I've heard multiple people say this. I have three World Series Championships and they are like your kids. They're all incredibly special for their own reasons.

LVO: I know that Jonathan Papelbon was on Letterman Halloween night because I saw him, and he was speaking of David Ortiz giving a speech to you. Do you feel that that was somewhat of a defining moment?

CS: Well there were a couple of us that sat up and talked and you know the thing that that meeting did and the point that I tried to make in that meeting was that "We do not have to come back and win three games in a row against Cleveland. We have to go tonight and we have to win the first inning. We have to win this game one pitch, one out, one at bat, one inning at a time. And if we can win the first inning or play to a tie, then we win the second inning. When you can get a group of people that are that talented focused on the moment - all of them - you can't get beat. It was the formula that we used in 2004. We had this meeting in 2004 down three "o" and it was the thing I said at that time. This is all about the moment. Winning the pitch, every at bat, every pitch grinding out every single inning, everything you do, doing it to perfection. And understanding that you know, each game is it's own little series. When you get guys, that again, that are that talented and then a fan base like this it makes it kind of easy to do something like that, whereas other teams might have trouble focusing.

LVO: How about Mike Lowell? Were you worried that it might not get done?

CS: Yeah.

LVO: Were you so psyched when you heard?

CS: I was beyond ecstatic. Mike is a man's man. That guy ...I was worried about him possibly going to New York, for the reason that... not because it's the Yankees but because Mike is one of those guys who comes in and stabilizes a clubhouse. His presence and his experience are infecting. You catch it. And he is a guy who can come into this market, like any other market, and there's a sense of calmness around him. He plays the game right. He plays the game hard. He's damn good and he doesn't take it to a level that's unattainable. He makes you understand it....as an everyday player. I'm not the kind of guy that can be a leader on a team, in a sense, because I'm a pitcher. I play once every five days. I have no idea what the physical grind is for those guys that play every day. So you need somebody like him. And, when you don't have him it's very apparent that there's a whole somewhere in the chemistry of a club. And you know that was such a huge thing. And the fact is, that the Red Sox....they changed....after the 04 team a lot of guys left. It was very clear and you know you understand it, a lot of guys left because the front office made it very clear, "We're not going to be married to a team that did win it. We are trying to put together a team that can win it. And we don't believe that these are the right guys going forward." Now, you know obviously our opinions differ because this is family. Trading away and letting family members go, but, they had the same approach this time around but they looked at the pieces differently and they realized that these guys were going to be a big part of us going ahead.

LVO: And the blog? What made you decide to have the fans write in?

CS: Well Mike and I talked about the blog a couple times and I actually just mailed him 219 pages of thank you's yesterday.

LVO: After you won the World Series in 2004 there was a significant amount of roster turnover. How does it feel to know that come spring you will be going back to a team with so many of the same pieces that helped you to win this year?

CS: It's comforting. In 2001 when we won the World Series in Arizona we went to spring training in 2002 with pretty much the same team, won the division again and went to the post season. And I think we felt we were very good. There's a very similar feeling right now for me with this team. This is an incredibly positive mix. There's young and old, all very talented and now you know, the Santana thing is a possibility and all this other stuff happening. We play in the toughest division of baseball- hands down the toughest division in baseball, so it's incredibly reassuring to know that we're going in with the same core group of guys who went through it all and did it before.

LVO: "Do you think in this league it's enough to stick with what won if for you this year, or is there a need to constantly upgrade the roster to keep up with the competition?"

CS: I think you have to assess it individually each year. You know, I just said, in 04, Theo looked at the roster and said, "We have certain guys becoming free agents. I don't believe this guy and this guy are going to be good long-term investments and they look at it as a business. And as players, it's very personal, and so there's a detachment there that happens, but he's done a pretty damn good job since he's got here. So I trust the fact that he is going to....We're are in a market that has to win every year because of the demands and expectations of the fan base. So you know he's doing everything he can do to put the best possible team on the field that he can. And when you can trust the front office like that, you'll never hear players on this team say you know "I'd really wish we'd go get this guy or sign this guy or make this trade." They're doing everything they can do.

LVO: "You are one of the best post season pitchers of all times. What is it about the playoffs that brings out the best in you?"

CS: It's the ultimate stage. It's a situation when you think that just about everybody else wouldn't have the ability to do it. You get into that stage and it's the most important games and no ones expecting anybody to be that much better than everybody else. So I look at it as the ultimate pass/fail test. You don't get second chances so every game really is do or die and I always feel like mentally I'm so much better than everybody else that I'm going to win I just need to hurry up and get the result. You know it's an arrogant, egotistical thing I guess in a sense, but it's the only way I can function when I have a ball in my hand. It's just that innate belief there's nobody that's going to step to the plate that is going to be consistently better than me. You know I do take the pitching match up personal. The other guy on the other team, I'm pitching against him. I always look at it as I've been here. I've done this. I'm better than this guy and this guy is not going to out pitch me. It's just going out there and making it happen.

LVO: "You probably have been asked this countless times, but after winning your third World Series many athletes in your stage of their career would chose to go out on top. What made you want to come back for one more year knowing that it might not have the same fairytale ending?"

CS: I'm just not smart. We had planned on this being the final season and there really is no better scenario with which to walk away from. I think there's a lot of things that happened this year on a personal level that I was incredibly unhappy with, in how I performed. I did not want this to be my last year. I still feel like there's a better pitcher left here that wasn't there last year and I want to go out, having the season I know I can have and winning one more.

LVO: "Who is the best pitcher that you have ever pitched with on the same team?"

CS: Randy [Johnson], by far was the best pitcher. I've had a chance to pitch with him and Pedro [Martinez]. Randy was the best pitcher for a period of time that I pitched, the two years he had in 2001, 2002 were the two most dominating seasons I've ever seen. I think he and Pedro would be the two that I would say were by the far the best. And then I would probably put Josh in there, as the guy who probably after next year, will be, when I look back and say "Whose the best guy to play with?" It's gonna be those three guys, with Randy the best at the time, Josh probably being right there.

LVO: This one's from my husband. "What's your off season like? Do you get to spend much time with your family? Do they go to spring training with you?"

CS: Unfortunately, this off-season is twice as busy as the regular season. So, I'm at the office usually by 8,8:30 in the morning and I'm home usually 5:30, 6. Not as much time as I would like. Had I the chance to go back and do it all over again I probably would have waited to do the company thing. They've already sacrificed so much, for me. Generally spring training they'll come down for a week during spring break. Our kids are now at the age where their social lives are a big deal and it's another one of the reasons why we wanted to stay here to allow them to build that foundation that you have as a kid growing up with your same friends. You know next year's going to be a little different for us, going to Japan in mid-March.

LVO: "Is there a routine that you do before you go to spring training?"

CS: Spring training kind of started about a week and a half ago from a work out standpoint, just getting ready for next year. I'm at a point in time in my life where physically I need to lose weight. I need to drop down to a weight I haven't been at for probably ten years. Because I'm older things are harder. I need to pay more attention to that. I was never the Adonis body type, but things always came very easy physically to me on the baseball field and as you get older those things change and it's just a slow process. And, you don't notice a lot of times and it creeps up on you. I'm at that point where I've got to do a lot of different things now to just be normal, not even better. Just to be normal I've got to do different stuff.

LVO: "What's your Christmas wish list for the Red Sox organization. What are your hopes and dreams for next season?"

CS: Christmas wish list would be that we show up in spring training with our entire roster completely healthy. With Manny going into the final year of his contract, there'll be some incentive there for him to have a special year..With David being healthy. On kind of a selfish note I hope Doug Mirabelli comes back. He's one of my better friends in the game and one of my favorite people of all time. But, you know, they've already answered my wish list. This is a dream organization from that standpoint...When the game starts it's on us, and this ownership puts us in a place to win every year where it really comes down to how well we play. So from a wish list standpoint you just want everybody to have a safe off-season and everybody show up healthy next year. Obviously the fairytale ending is I'd love to be on the mound for game seven, in the 9th inning with a five nothing lead and throw a complete game and we win another World Series and then I can walk away.

LVO: ... The Red Sox are flirting with the idea of a six man pitching rotation?

CS: Yeah. It's certainly a potential luxury having as much talent as we have, and the mix is almost perfect in that you have Wake and I. I've always been a guy who pitched on my fifth day no matter what the rotation was. And then coming over here now with Josh and Dice, Josh tends to want to be out there every 5th day for the most part early in the year. Dice K coming from a six-man rotation in Japan. Wake and I being able to use the extra day. Johnny Lester and Clay Buchholz both being on the Red Sox program which means if they start the beginning of the season, they won't be able to throw 225 innings cause they'll have an innings cut off point. You know that's a potential scenario that very few teams have. Very few teams have three or four good big league starting pitchers, we've got six. So, I can see it being messed with.

LVO: What do you think it's going to take for you guys to win back the World Championship?

CS: Health. I think we're so good and so deep that if we stay healthy. We never won more than four in a row last year, we never lost more than four in a row until, until we won out to end the season. That comes back to starting pitching. We had a deep solid staff. Our bullpen was phenomenal. It's health. We just have to stay healthy.

LVO: Do you feel that there are any misconceptions out there about you that you'd want to clear up?

CS: Well there's lot of things said about me that as a human being you don't appreciate. People feel that I'm an attention whore; glory hound hogthing...which I think if you talked to the people that know me you'd know that a lot of that is just the opposite. I'm opinionated. I'm very opinionated and I'm passionate about life. So, if you ask me a question, and you can tell through this interview, I don't have the ability to say "yes" or "no" to things because the things that I believe in, I'm passionate about and I have a belief on. I've never claimed to be right all the time and I know I'm not. I know I've made some heinous mistakes in my career saying things that I shouldn't have said. But, that doesn't make me anything other than human. You know the people that chastise me have all done the same things. That doesn't make it right, it's just kinda that whole glass house thing. But, that's the only way I know how. That's who I am and the bottom line is I'm okay with being wrong as long as me being wrong isn't a malicious attempt on somebody else. The Barry Bonds quotes from earlier in the year? What a horrible thing to say. Regardless of whether I felt it or not, or whether I believe it or not it's not my place to do that and when you think about the impact of those comments and not just on Barry but on his family...I have kids. And, so there are times that I wish I would have shut up, but the bottom line is I know that I'm a good person. I know that I don't mean ill-will toward anybody. I know that I have a window of opportunity to be a spoke person for ALS that will close when baseball's over. I know that I have a window of opportunity for any of the other things I'm doing that will close when baseball's over. The media...it's really a damned if you do - damned if you don't thing. The unfortunate part is that fans attribute the media commentary and editorial as expertise ...